California's most enduring political battle is over whether its relatively high living costs and taxes and dense regulatory thicket make it uncompetitive in a global economy – or, as one blue-ribbon state commission put it in the 1990s, have become a "job-killing machine." The clash plays itself out in the Capitol each year as labor, environmental, consumer and other groups sponsor dozens of bills that business groups label "job killers" and try, usually successfully, to block. But the debate began three-plus decades ago when, after a string of overtly pro-business governors, a young Jerry Brown won the office and appointed...